MetaVerse makes its 2013 debut with a new format, and guest Krizzlybear gets MetaASK’d

Hello everybody and indeed, MetaVerse is back! Better than ever? I’d like to think so. As you’ll hear me explain at the opening, the format of the podcast will be a little different. In addition to that, I’m going to make a vow to have more episodes released in 2013, hopefully going to a twice-a-month release schedule. Anyway, onto this episode… we recap 2012 in anime and Fosh hosts the debut of his interview segment called MetaASK with special guest Krizzlybear.

We only have 2 segments this time, but hopefully we’ll do more come next episode’s production. If you have suggestions or thoughts on the format, drop a comment and lemme know. Thanks and enjoy the show!

The team behind Metanorn's Podcast, MetaVerse. Our aniblogging experience gives us the expertise to dish out detailed opinions on which series to watch and ones to drop. And remember, we take fangirling seriously!

21 Responses to “MetaVerse Episode 26: A PreCure For The Common Cold”

I listened through the first part, maybe I’ll get to the rest later. Mysterious Girlfriend X was a Spring 2012 series, not summer, that was the only thing that really was incorrect that I heard.

I touched on the idea that ‘anime is getting worse’ or just isn’t as good any more in the second part of my year-end post (which I’m not going to link again, だから I’m not trying to link-spam :P). My opinion on it, as someone who doesn’t have previous years to compare it to directly, is that the idea is all wet. I think that as memories get longer, the things that are remembered are the very good and very bad. And the relative good or bad increases. But as someone who wasn’t around at the time, I still have a chance to watch those shows because they haven’t gone away. And there were some good shows in 2011. There were some good shows in 2010. There were good shows farther back than that, too. But there were also really good shows this season. And if the current time gets dragged down because the great shows are pulled down by memories of mediocre or crummy shows, it’s not really a fair comparison.

The other aspect I think contributes is that people remember their initial infatuations with things. So someone that got into anime in 2010, they’re probably going to favor shows that were new when they were new. And then there’s the fact that people then get a bit tired of doing something, and when you get tired of it, you don’t want to do as much of it. I see this from bloggers all the time. “Well, I used to watch 10 shows a season, but now there’s only one or two that I want to watch, and the rest suck and are just the same thing over and over, and so anime sucks *now*.” Well, when you watched those 10 shows before, there was another guy saying the same thing you are now, that he was tired of the same thing over and over. It’s not like the basic tropes sprang into life after you started (for the most part). It was fresh to you then, as it’s fresh to someone else starting now, as it was fresh to that grizzled old guy 6 years ago when he started. I really think the main motivation to saying things like that isn’t the shows, it’s the viewer, and their burnout is the problem, not that shows are better or worse.

There are shows from 2012 that I think stack up to *anything* I’ve seen from years previous. And I also think that even if the best shows may not have been the best ever, the breadth of shows is better than ever. A comment on SGK to my post mentioned a friend that had analyzed the percentage of crap titles (of course, this is subjective), and found that the percentage of crummy shows each year is about the same. So if more shows are coming out, then more of them will be crap, but more of them will be good, too.

Anime getting worse: Yeah I think the answer to that question is different for everyone? Personally I think it is getting better for animation because had lots of really FANTASTIC looking anime last year, but the story department needs more work for those shows that need no mention xD

In 2013 I hope we get more original anime titles, but light novels are popular so we will probably get more of those kinds of series this time? I just want a series to have good animation and a great story! I know that is tough because each of us have our own takes on what is good and what is garbage hahah

And the main comment I have on the format is that it’s still really long. I like the 20-30 minute Robotics;Notes ones a lot better (and 20 is better than 30 for them). It’s just an awful lot of attention to ask. And I know that if I don’t like it, I don’t have to listen. But I also know that if you guys are like me, you want people to listen to you, and not find excuses not to. So maybe the best suggestion would be to try to narrow down the focus of the segments even more. Instead of ‘Best anime of 2012′ with four people contributing, pick a subset, maybe a particular genre, and then limit it to 10 minutes. And yeah, with more people that means less time to talk, but maybe even do a few small segments like that, using your new format, and have just one or two people who usually focus on that thing. Or maybe have the generalist (like lvlln) and the specificist (like Fosh on Giant Robots, or OC on psycho thrillers). And then you could switch up the roles for different subjects.

You guys do a good job, I’m just trying to give suggestions on what I think I’d enjoy listening to more.

In the future, I will be trying to keep the segments to a shorter length. 40+ minutes for these wasn’t what I was hoping for (my fault), so with time and a little tooling, I’m hopeful that we can find the right balance of content and time. Narrowing down our focus of segments is something I’ll take into consideration when planning for future episodes.

10 minutes can be a possibility dependent on the subject, but I would expect the bulk of segments to fit in the 20-minute window. I’m planning to set 30 minutes as a maximum so that hosts don’t feel too contained or feel like they missed a number of discussion points.

And just a word of caution: one of these days, I might go on a Marc Maron-style opening monologue.

Good idea on the new format. It’s a perfect way to talk about multiple topics and I’d like to hear more of the other writers and their opinions. To be honest, when I saw Smile PreCure at the heading of the post, I was expecting Karakuri to be lurking around. To support the new format, you have to organize to a degree on what exactly is going to be talked about.

For the Year Ender posts, the music segment is probably the toughest next to what I’m sure will have seiyuu segment. There were so many good songs through 2012 but Guilty Crown will easily gain a high voting rate.

My top anime would have to be Jormungand (First season and Perfect Order to be a 2 cour series). Loved the story, character development, humor and epic gun fights. Obviously the best part of it was the charismatic and psychotic Koko Hekmatyar in her ruthless quest for “world peace” and cuts down anyone who stands in her way. What most viewers would appreciate about the show is how it promotes the female characters to strong, capable, intelligent and still be insanely hot at the same time.

I was kind of expecting OC to nominate Phi Brain as her top anime of 2012. Based on one of the posts she made, the show had such an effect that it broke her and she started loving it and founded the Phi Brain cult. LOL. First season started Fall 2011 and ended right before Spring 2012. Knowing that it has third season in the works is baffling yet exciting because of whoever is making all the puzzles. They even managed to get seiyuus like Hiroshi Kamiya and Yoko Hikasa in on the franchise.

When Jrow brought the idea of breaking stuff into various sections I was really curious to see how he would splice everything together for a full show, but it turned out really nice so good job to Jrow!

Hahahaha I can’t take credit for that picture I think someone else had a hand at that and I bet you were thinking it was going to be 100% Smile Precure related huh? xD

YES! Picking your favorite OP/ED/OST from a full years worth of anime is really tough…yeah…Guilty Crown will probably win for most of the awards.

Jourmungand was alright I remember it had a handful of awesome arcs and a few WTF moments, but I was not happy with the ending because it felt kind of like they ran out of steam at the end and threw a ending together at the last minute? I dunno it had plenty of entertaining moments and cool character interaction.

Yeah, that’s what I originally thought seeing the heading. Who should I give the credit to? You guys really deceived me with that one and my assumptions went out the window.

It’s going to be tough with the music contestants but Guilty Crown is going to be the Twilight award biased choice along the lines of this contest as if it was the MTV Awards.

I saw the same flawed thing you did with Jormungand’s ending but easily pushed it away because of its overall performance through its entire run. Well, nothing is perfect (Yes, pun intended because of the second season’s title) but it was passable.

My guess is that Phi Brain season three is going to start in Spring like the second one did last year.

Winter 2013 doesn’t come close to expectations like last year where we had good animes like Black Rock Shooter, Mouretsu Pirates, Senki Zesshou Symphgear, Rinne no Lagrange, Nisemonogatari and Another along with continuing shows Guilty Crown, Persona 4: The Animation and Mirai Nikki. Even though this time has some promising shows, in general, it’s nearly a complete letdown.

Spring was good next to Fall season. It had Fate/Zero 2, Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? Of the Dead, Tasogare Otome x Amnesia, Hyouka, Haiyore! Nyaruko-san and Jormungand. Nazo no Kanojo (Mysterious Girlfriend) X is actually part of Spring, not Summer. Just to clear up any possible confusion.

I can’t wait to see what 2013 brings us! I know I am looking forward to Railgun s2 and who knows maybe the index movie will be floating around in 2014? Not that I want to WAIT that long T____________T

I love just about all those spring shows even though I had a few minor issues with Hyouka and sadly I could not get into MGX at all! I did give it at least three to four episodes I guess the spit parts kept me from watching? I just couldn’t get past those moments xDD

For 2013, we might be looking at another Haiyore! Nyaruko-san and Senki Zesshou Symphogear while we wait for Railgun Season 2. I was overjoyed to hear about Railgun because I was begging for it. High School DxD Season 2, [K] Season 2 and Phi Brain season 3 are already confirmed and what I also want is more of Ao no Exorcist, Ben-To, Oda Nobuna no Yabou and a third Index.

@Foshizzel wow it seems doki doki precure going to be very original since the cure leader mana is a student concuil president which never happend in the show and the way she find the object alow her to transform is diffrent.i think you will love this new original things